Hershey foreign workers organized sit-down, strike

On behalf of all the J-1 students who went on strike from Hershey's packing plant, I can strongly say that this struggle was from the beginning a fight by students who wanted to change conditions at the plant.

If Mr. David Taylor had talked to students before he wrote his op-ed ("Big Labor has agenda in Hershey," Sept. 20), we would have told him we organized with the help of the National Guestworker Alliance because none of us had this kind of experience before.

But we were the ones who decided to organize and go on strike. We held the sit-down, and we invited the unions to join our fight along with all Pennsylvania’s workers and unemployed people.

When we started to talk with local workers, we learned that Hershey and its subcontractors had been using J-1 students and taking living-wage jobs away from local workers for years.

That's why we demanded not just the $3,000 to $6,000 each that we paid for a cultural exchange, but that Hershey make its packing plant jobs into living-wage jobs for local workers.

We understood that our fight was their fight, too. When we march in Hershey today with 1,000 of our supporters, we will be standing up for good jobs for local workers. We invite you to join us.